Stay on target

One of the 100-plus roving robots that deliver food across the Berkeley, Calif., area last week caught fire on the UC Berkeley campus

Students were understandably upset: That’s one fewer bot available to help stave off 2 a.m. study-break cravings.

“One of the batteries for our robot that was idling started smouldering, eventually leading to some smoke and minor flames,” manufacturer Kiwi wrote in a blog post. “A member of the community acted swiftly to extinguish the flames using a nearby fire extinguisher.

“Garnering more than 300 reactions and more than 90 comments within an hour of uploading, the video of the robot in flames made waves on the page,” according toDaily Californian city news editor Sophia Brown-Heidenreich. “Students have called for a moment of silence, suggesting finals next week may have finally gotten the robot, as well.”

The Berkeley Fire Department, meanwhile, secured the scene, dousing the android with foam to ensure there was no risk of re-ignition.

On the plus side, this is not a sign of the coming robot apocalypse.

Kiwi chalked the incident up to human error: Someone replaced a functioning battery with a defective one.

“This caused an exceedingly rare occurrence of the battery experiencing thermal runaway,” the blog post said. “To ensure this will not happen again, Kiwi has put in custom software that will rigorously monitor the state of each battery.

“We took this issue very seriously,” the firm continued. “We promptly pulled all of our robots from operations, suspending our service until we were able to investigate the root cause.”

Those orders already en route were delivered by hand.

Iatsenia assured The Daily Californian that this particular KiwiBot was not delivering a meal when it caught fire.